In recent years numerous wilding projects have emerged, many inspired by Isabella Tree’s book Wilding (Tree 2018). Wilding tells the story of the transformation of the estate at Knepp from intensive arable farm to biodiverse woodland and scrub. Wilding is a process that offers a new paradigm for land management, in which nature leads and human agency facilitates. Here I argue that wilding offers a rich metaphor for a new paradigm of ecclesial imagination in a secular age. This new “ecclesial imaginary” places the Church as a co-agent with the Holy Spirit, participating in the emergent life generated through the power of the Spirit. The use of this metaphor in nature conservation is described and its theological validity explored. The article ends with some preliminary reflections on the potential of this metaphor to move the Church toward a more fruitful disposition in its mission in a secular age.
{"title":"Wilding the Church","authors":"Paul L. Bradbury","doi":"10.54195/ef11876","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11876","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years numerous wilding projects have emerged, many inspired by Isabella Tree’s book Wilding (Tree 2018). Wilding tells the story of the transformation of the estate at Knepp from intensive arable farm to biodiverse woodland and scrub. Wilding is a process that offers a new paradigm for land management, in which nature leads and human agency facilitates. Here I argue that wilding offers a rich metaphor for a new paradigm of ecclesial imagination in a secular age. This new “ecclesial imaginary” places the Church as a co-agent with the Holy Spirit, participating in the emergent life generated through the power of the Spirit. The use of this metaphor in nature conservation is described and its theological validity explored. The article ends with some preliminary reflections on the potential of this metaphor to move the Church toward a more fruitful disposition in its mission in a secular age.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116648635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores the experience of those choosing to live a monastic lifestyle and analyses these experiences as potential missional practice in our time. Questionnaires, surveys, and interviews were used to correlate the language, symbols, understanding, and experience of participants. Using the data in an imaginative way, I offer a conversation between: a pilgrim interested in monastic practices, Clare as a facilitator, and composite characters that were created using the research data. These characters’ conversations share and critique the lived experience of the research participants. This imaginative conversation also creatively provides a literature review. Drawing on ideas from fantasy fiction, the analysis and results of the research are explored in a fantasy world called “Freedom.” The research demonstrates the cyclical process of contemplative action. Innovative missional practice (by individuals and the Church as a whole) becomes an ethos by which to live. Defining missional spirituality in this manner deepens the Church’s understanding of “mission” in our time.
{"title":"The Franciscan Vow of Poverty as an Ancient and Modern Resource for Innovative Missional Practice","authors":"James Fox-Robinson","doi":"10.54195/ef11878","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11878","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the experience of those choosing to live a monastic lifestyle and analyses these experiences as potential missional practice in our time. Questionnaires, surveys, and interviews were used to correlate the language, symbols, understanding, and experience of participants. Using the data in an imaginative way, I offer a conversation between: a pilgrim interested in monastic practices, Clare as a facilitator, and composite characters that were created using the research data. These characters’ conversations share and critique the lived experience of the research participants. This imaginative conversation also creatively provides a literature review. Drawing on ideas from fantasy fiction, the analysis and results of the research are explored in a fantasy world called “Freedom.” The research demonstrates the cyclical process of contemplative action. Innovative missional practice (by individuals and the Church as a whole) becomes an ethos by which to live. Defining missional spirituality in this manner deepens the Church’s understanding of “mission” in our time.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"76 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115304660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dwelling in the World is a practice designed to help churches to form a public shared identity in the mission of God with people in their wider communities who want to work with them—their “people of peace”. Grounded in the missio Dei, this practice offers a concrete example of missional discipleship. How does this work in practice? And what happens between church members and their people of peace? Based on research conducted in 2020, this article presents that research and its findings, paying close attention to the lived experience of those involved. It argues that an exchange takes place which is relational rather than transactional where the partners are drawn together into the life of God as they join together in God’s mission. This is a disturbing and transforming public journey, which decentres discipleship from the private, individualised world of church and, by means of attention to the “other,” re-centres it in God and God’s agency in mission. Therefore the outcome may be appropriately named as missional discipleship.
{"title":"Dwelling in the World with People of Peace","authors":"N. Ladd","doi":"10.54195/ef11888","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11888","url":null,"abstract":"Dwelling in the World is a practice designed to help churches to form a public shared identity in the mission of God with people in their wider communities who want to work with them—their “people of peace”. Grounded in the missio Dei, this practice offers a concrete example of missional discipleship. How does this work in practice? And what happens between church members and their people of peace? Based on research conducted in 2020, this article presents that research and its findings, paying close attention to the lived experience of those involved. It argues that an exchange takes place which is relational rather than transactional where the partners are drawn together into the life of God as they join together in God’s mission. This is a disturbing and transforming public journey, which decentres discipleship from the private, individualised world of church and, by means of attention to the “other,” re-centres it in God and God’s agency in mission. Therefore the outcome may be appropriately named as missional discipleship.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132096673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores two faces of poverty—the poverty of the wretched of the earth, and that of the lords of poverty. Both are bereft of dignity and humanity. Illustrations from the African context are given. Christian community on mission in a world choking on poverty is highlighted as modelled on the Jesus event, the humanness of God—a paradox of vulnerability bringing breath and life. Ubuntu, the African disposition to choose growth into fuller humanity, is proposed to aid a meaningful African Christian engagement with the various forms of poverty. Experiences of an encounter between the two faces of poverty at St Martin’s Catholic Social Apostolate in Nyahururu demonstrate how the Christ experience of openness to humanness—solidarity and vulnerability— can turn poverty into liberating grace.
{"title":"Community on Mission in a World Wounded by Poverty","authors":"Beatrice W. E. Churu, M. Getui","doi":"10.54195/ef11884","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11884","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores two faces of poverty—the poverty of the wretched of the earth, and that of the lords of poverty. Both are bereft of dignity and humanity. Illustrations from the African context are given. Christian community on mission in a world choking on poverty is highlighted as modelled on the Jesus event, the humanness of God—a paradox of vulnerability bringing breath and life. Ubuntu, the African disposition to choose growth into fuller humanity, is proposed to aid a meaningful African Christian engagement with the various forms of poverty. Experiences of an encounter between the two faces of poverty at St Martin’s Catholic Social Apostolate in Nyahururu demonstrate how the Christ experience of openness to humanness—solidarity and vulnerability— can turn poverty into liberating grace.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"193 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133114134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Soerens, Tim, 2020. Everywhere You Look: Discovering the Church Right Where You Are","authors":"Elaine A. Heath","doi":"10.54195/ef11891","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11891","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129444086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Adapting to a Gift Economy","authors":"S. Hagley","doi":"10.54195/ef11890","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11890","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129054064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Colouring of Grey Literature: A review of “JVT quotes” and “Answers on a Postcard”","authors":"Steve Taylor","doi":"10.54195/ef11893","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11893","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115567071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bevans’ concept of transforming discipleship foregrounds a fundamental symbiotic relationship between discipleship and mission. The interplay between both practices is central to the wider debate of contemporary church social engagement under missio Dei. He explains that the notion of baptism and theosis embedded in the idea of transforming discipleship points to a concrete transformation of the human experience and condition. This forms the premise of this article in exploring how Christian practices of discipleship and mission articulate a process of human becoming and participation in the life and mission of God that centres on a critical engagement with lived reality. This understanding offers a consistent framework of fostering a mutual relationship between local churches and communities in the poorer urban context, which often face the twin challenge of church and social decline. It questions a simplistic binary correlation between the practices of discipleship and mission. Such correlation often leads to a seeming dichotomy in Christian practices, with mission being portrayed as a means of achieving a quantitative outcome and discipleship a qualitative one. Instead, the focus of this article is to elucidate how discipleship and mission are interwoven, that both start with God and are integral to the actualisation of God’s salvific plan in the world.
{"title":"Transforming Discipleship","authors":"D. Njuguna","doi":"10.54195/ef11885","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11885","url":null,"abstract":"Bevans’ concept of transforming discipleship foregrounds a fundamental symbiotic relationship between discipleship and mission. The interplay between both practices is central to the wider debate of contemporary church social engagement under missio Dei. He explains that the notion of baptism and theosis embedded in the idea of transforming discipleship points to a concrete transformation of the human experience and condition. This forms the premise of this article in exploring how Christian practices of discipleship and mission articulate a process of human becoming and participation in the life and mission of God that centres on a critical engagement with lived reality. This understanding offers a consistent framework of fostering a mutual relationship between local churches and communities in the poorer urban context, which often face the twin challenge of church and social decline. It questions a simplistic binary correlation between the practices of discipleship and mission. Such correlation often leads to a seeming dichotomy in Christian practices, with mission being portrayed as a means of achieving a quantitative outcome and discipleship a qualitative one. Instead, the focus of this article is to elucidate how discipleship and mission are interwoven, that both start with God and are integral to the actualisation of God’s salvific plan in the world.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"91 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121678092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article attends to the religious landscape in contemporary England, particularly those who display some Christian beliefs and practices loosely, while their church attendance is slight, occasional or non-existent. In Western society and churches, they are predominantly characterised as “nominal Christians.” From a missiological perspective, I examine the adequacy of this characterisation, drawing upon my empirical findings of non-diasporic Korean missionaries’ engagement with the phenomenon of interest. Firstly, I show how nominalism is addressed in the two major sociological approaches that attempt to characterise the religious trend in the contemporary Western culture, namely, secularization theories and de-institutionalization theories. Secondly, I present empirical findings of Korean missionaries’ reflection on nominalism in the light of such a sociological debate. Finally, I examine the missiological implication of their reflection for nominalism in reference to the concept of missio Dei. I argue that Korean missionaries’ accounts disclose what I call “religious nominals” who have some valid elements of Christian faith in an increasingly deinstitutionalized ecclesial context. They represent a distinctive religious constituency among whom God carries out the redemptive work of Christ, the manner of which is as yet to be explored. This disclosure invites us to review our understanding of nominalism with a serious theological exploration of such a redemptive intervention of God. This exploration also invites further reflection on our current discourse of missional church in this particular theological context.
{"title":"A Reflection on Nominal Christians in Contemporary England","authors":"S. Kim","doi":"10.54195/ef11887","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54195/ef11887","url":null,"abstract":"This article attends to the religious landscape in contemporary England, particularly those who display some Christian beliefs and practices loosely, while their church attendance is slight, occasional or non-existent. In Western society and churches, they are predominantly characterised as “nominal Christians.” From a missiological perspective, I examine the adequacy of this characterisation, drawing upon my empirical findings of non-diasporic Korean missionaries’ engagement with the phenomenon of interest. Firstly, I show how nominalism is addressed in the two major sociological approaches that attempt to characterise the religious trend in the contemporary Western culture, namely, secularization theories and de-institutionalization theories. Secondly, I present empirical findings of Korean missionaries’ reflection on nominalism in the light of such a sociological debate. Finally, I examine the missiological implication of their reflection for nominalism in reference to the concept of missio Dei. I argue that Korean missionaries’ accounts disclose what I call “religious nominals” who have some valid elements of Christian faith in an increasingly deinstitutionalized ecclesial context. They represent a distinctive religious constituency among whom God carries out the redemptive work of Christ, the manner of which is as yet to be explored. This disclosure invites us to review our understanding of nominalism with a serious theological exploration of such a redemptive intervention of God. This exploration also invites further reflection on our current discourse of missional church in this particular theological context.","PeriodicalId":151321,"journal":{"name":"Ecclesial Futures","volume":"128 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128128978","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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